Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

202 for Monday, September 17th. In today's news, Florence has killed 17 people so far.

The FEMA director defends the president's false claim that Maria's death toll was exaggerated.

And the president prepares to massively escalate the trade war with China.

But first, the big idea.

The White House on Sunday stood by Brett Kavanaugh after a woman publicly accused him of sexual assault that occurred decades ago,

an allegation that triggered the most concrete signs yet of Republican resistance to President Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

With the nomination suddenly in doubt, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican

from Iowa, was working to arrange follow-up calls with Kavanaugh and Christine Ford, the woman who said he

assaulted her when the two were in high school. Senators Jeff Flake from Arizona and Bob

Corker from Tennessee, two Republicans who are retiring at the end of the year joined

Democrats in calling for a delay in the vote until the committee hears from Ford.

So did Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska.

The panel is currently scheduled to vote Thursday afternoon to push ahead with Kavanaugh's nomination.

The Washington Post published a story Sunday afternoon that included an interview with Ford.

It's the first time her identity has been revealed publicly and her first public comments about the allegation.

Ford told the post that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend, both

stumbling drunk, she alleges, corralled her in a bedroom during a gathering of

teenagers at a house party in Montgomery County, Maryland. When she tried to scream, she said,

he put his hand over her mouth.

Kavanaugh categorically and unequivocally denied the accusation

in a statement released Sunday by the White House. Afterwards, in an the He said, quote, for me, we can't vote until we hear more.

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